D.C. Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

always a stretch,” Dino said, “and usually improbable. In this case, what could one woman have said to another that made her angry enough to kill?”
    “I can’t imagine,” Fair replied.
    “Perhaps Mrs. Kendrick threatened her,” Stone said.
    “Threatened her with what?”
    “Perhaps she threatened to expose something that the other woman didn’t want to become general knowledge.”
    “Like what?” Fair asked.
    “That remains to be seen,” Stone replied “Thank you for your help, Fair. We’ll find our way out.”
    Fair left, and Stone turned to Dino. “How the hell did you come up with that?”

    “I merely observed, my dear Watson,” Dino said, affecting a terrible English accent. He produced a zipper bag and dropped the stone into it. “Now we’d better get this to the lab.”

7
     
    STONE NAVIGATED THEM ALONG PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE TOWARD Georgetown, and they began driving down tree-lined streets of town houses. “Two down on the left,” Stone said, pointing to a house.
    Dino invented a parking place and turned down his visor, which had a government business notice on it. They got out of the car and approached the front door. There was a discreet FOR SALE sign attached to the wrought-iron fence enclosing the small front garden, bearing the name and number of a realtor. Stone pulled away a couple of inches of yellow crime-scene tape from the front door, then unlocked it and led the way in.
    “Pretty nice,” Dino said, looking around.
    Stone walked into the living room and stopped. There seemed to be some pieces of furniture missing, and there were outlines on the walls where pictures had hung. “Burglary, you think?” Stone asked.
    “Pretty picky burglars,” Dino said, looking up. “There,” he said, pointing at one of the beams across the room. “There’s a mark where the rope was.”
    “That’s, what, twelve feet up?” Stone asked.
    “About. There must have been a ladder here. Maybe the burglars took that, too.”
    They walked around the house, checking the kitchen, which seemed to have been remodeled recently, and a comfortable study, where the bookcases were more than half empty and there were more missing-picture marks.
    Stone opened a few drawers. “Pencils, paper clips, that sort of stuff. No paper, no files in the file drawers.”
    “Burglars wouldn’t bother with that stuff,” Dino said. “The family must have come into the house and lifted whatever they wanted.”
    A voice suddenly came from the doorway behind them. “Why not?” a man asked. “It was all ours.”
    Stone and Dino turned to find a young man of medium height and slim build, wearing surgeon’s scrubs, standing behind them. “Are you FBI?” he asked.
    Stone and Dino produced their White House IDs.
    The young man looked closely at them. “Anybody I can call to verify you are who these say you are?”
    “Tim Coleman, chief of staff,” Stone said. “Or Charleston Bostwick, his deputy.”
    “Yeah, I know them,” he replied, handing back the IDs.
    “You have us at a disadvantage,” Stone said.
    “Oh, sorry, I’m Tom Kendrick. They were my parents.”
    “We’re sorry for your loss,” Stone said.
    “Losses,” Tom replied. “The whole thing was screwy.”
    Stone pointed at a leather sofa. “Why don’t you sit down and tell us about it?”
    Tom didn’t mov Fri`. “e. “What is your purpose here?”
    “Some people at the White House were not satisfied with the investigation into your parents’ deaths,” Stone replied. “They asked us to look into it.”
    Tom went to the sofa and sat down, while Stone and Dino took chairs. “And what are your qualifications for that work?”
    Dino spoke up. “I’m a detective lieutenant on the NYPD,” he said. “Stone is a retired homicide detective.”
    “Then I guess you’re qualified. Actually, I’m glad you, or somebody like you, is looking into the situation, because it’s completely crazy.”
    “Tell us about it,” Dino said.
    “First of